


Stressful Dreams

by CorruptThySoul



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Dreams, Early Game, Gen, High Chaos Emily Kaldwin, The Void, idk what else to put, mentions Alexi, mentions Corvo, mentions Delilah, mentions the Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 16:51:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12939567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorruptThySoul/pseuds/CorruptThySoul
Summary: Emily meets Delilah in the Void for the first time and takes the opportunity to use the alone time once she leaves.





	Stressful Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Just a little update. I did jump off the sides a lot during this interaction in game, and it spurred this fic.

A cold sweat, like waking from a vivid nightmare. It must be early in the morning, much before dawn. The salty air an odd comfort even from within the Dreadful Whale.

Emily hoists herself from her bed, glancing over her desk and the journal open to her most recent entry. She still has much to do, even after saving Anton and bringing him back in such a sorry state.

Her body aches and she wants to go back to sleep but something feels different; there are no sounds from the waves outside, no pattering of mice outside her door as usual. No, instead there’s a heavy tension in the air. Somewhat familiar and yet mysterious all the same.

The door creaks open when she pulls the handle, and Emily curses under her breath when the hallway branches–quite literally–out into the expansiveness of the Void.

As soon as she steps through from the wooden floorboards and onto the cracking, suspended rocks, Emily takes in the sight of everything and it feels so wrong. The air is different and for some reason she feels as though none of this belongs.

As it turns out, Delilah was behind this little pocket in the Void. Twisted with her mental state and truths. Emily feels bile in her throat every time her ‘Aunt’ shows her face. Fists clench when she speaks of her mother, especially in such a childish and spoiled manner. What is she to believe? Everything that comes from Delilah is to be taken with a grain of salt–perhaps the entire shaker. It seems to her that Delilah is like a lost child, which she certainly makes herself out to be, but she will hardly make Emily believe in her side of the story. If it even is her story. 

Eventually, Delilah has her fill of hearing herself speak and allows Emily the gateway to leave. However, she stops and turns around to look at everything once more.

Her boots sound soft on the rock and it clicks in an eerily hollow manner. The Void certainly is barren of most things familiar, isn’t it? She thinks, Delilah’s twisted roots do not suit the scenery. The fog seems dull and muddy. It feels especially cold and lonely here.

Left to her own devices, Emily steps close to the edge of the platform she’s standing on. Her eyes glance up to the spiraling wood reaching towards the sky. Is it the sky? A sense of direction is almost moot in the Void–as clearly seen by the askew path she took to get here. Would she have not fallen off the side if it reacted to worldly gravity?

Out here, alone, she lowers the cover over her face and takes a deep breath. The air is cool and her lungs feel hollow but not empty. If she kicks a pebble off the side, it falls for eternity. Or does it? It falls out of sight but that’s not to say it doesn’t end up somewhere else. 

So many thoughts go through her head. Stress has caught up to her and she’s taken the time to let it eat at her on the inside. Her father… Corvo. A statue made by the hand of Delilah; usurped of her throne and kicked to the streets like the brat the Empire thought her to be. Alexi, her close friend and trusted Captain, killed during the coup. Oh, how she could use her presence now. Her knowing and confident demeanor.

The power she was gifted by the Outsider himself, but here she stands in the Void and his presence is nowhere to be seen. With the rage boiling under her skin at meeting Delilah for the first time since being sent away from Dunwall, the least that could happen would be to see Him and demand answers. Why is she here, how can she manipulate the Void? Why does her mother still come to her briefly and tell her such sad tales through the Heart? Why would he give that to her?

Breath is caught in her throat and the young Empress tries to conduct herself. Oh, but she’s always been so emotionally inclined. Tears fall onto her coat sleeve and are smeared with the bandages on her hand covering that dreaded Mark. It’s suppressed here somehow; she can’t call upon any power. Delilah must have some sort of ability to oppress it in her area. 

“Why…” She starts, but she doesn’t finish. Why did it have to be her? Why was her mother taken away when she was so young, why did Corvo spare the man who killed her, why did her father have to try to protect her from Delilah, why was she solely responsible for fixing everything for not just herself but for her city, her Empire? It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. She was the rightful Empress and Delilah took her throne like it was game.

Her sobbing echoes in the nothingness of the Void, no one there to comfort her in her time of doubt and need. 

After some time, she shifts her focus from cursing Delilah to cursing the Outsider. That he would ever give Delilah his Mark. That his Mark did nothing to help Corvo during the coup. Did he think he was making things better by giving her the Mark? 

Emily clenches her fist again, the symbol glowing with a tingling sensation in her skin. She hates it. So much power and she can’t do anything with it. There’s blood on her hands and the Heart taunts her for it. She feels terrible. Abandoned.

Her cheeks dry and the sniffling stops. There’s floating droplets of her sadness suspended in the air, but she swats them away. Opening her eyes, still glistening from the tears, she stares down at her feet. The edge of Nothingness and she feels so helpless.

She thinks until her mind is clear of noise. There’s nothing left and she wants it to stay that way for a little while. Her thumbs glide over her other fingertips as she takes a step forward and finds–expectantly–no footing. Her body is quickly taken by the false sense of gravity and she’s plunged down into the fog.

Her hair is loose and it somehow feels so calming to fall with nothing to catch her. No one to catch her. A few stray tears bubble and are left behind in a short trail. Her coat pulls against her body like it’s trying to stop her, the end unpredictable. She turns and faces the direction she fell from, but it’s impossible to differentiate from any other direction now. Her eyes close as she’s lost to the feeling, her chest tight and breath caught as if she’ll never make it back.

Transitioning into the state of stillness was smooth and she almost doesn’t notice, but Emily opens her eyes to find herself at the ledge she initially jumped from.

She runs across the rocky platform to the end of the path; opposite of the portal out and there’s jagged rocks positioned in the way. Even if she tries–and she does–to reach the old path by jumping as far as she can, she finds herself back in that same spot before hitting any solid ground.

The rocks that tried to block her path were not difficult to jump and climb. Standing on top of them was a task, and unfortunately it didn’t give her much of a newer view. She hops over to another set of rocks and balances herself atop them, arms stretched out and legs crossed.

She looks up at the spiraling tree trunks again and she curses out loud.

“Damn her… and Damn the Outsider.” Her voice is low, almost uncertain if either of them could still potentially hear her. 

Another jump, and another after that until she grows tired of the listless feeling in her soul. Time to face reality and begin her day anew. Time to pack up and head out into the city; set her sights on a new target and bring herself closer to reclaiming her throne.


End file.
